Hey peoples in the blogosphere. I am so sorry I haven’t had any updates at all lately. It’s not that I haven’t been coming up with recipes or making things from other blogs or cookbooks…but I’ll be straight forward in saying that I’ve been having a pretty hard time lately. If you’ve actually browsed around my blog you would have came across my “about me” page and read that I’m a recovering anorexic. Now I stress recovering. Lately I haven’t been doing so hot. Why? I have no idea. I’ve been anxious. I’ve been only eating my “safe” foods. I’ve been cooking and baking for other people like crazy. I’m over-exercising like crazy. I can barely leave the house (except for class). I want it to stop. Well…I’m really hoping it’s getting better. I’m going to try to get out tomorrow to go thrift store shopping and maybe hitting up Wegmans and the health food store. Ahh…just wish me luck. Anyways. I’d rather not sound depressed. How about I at least share some photographic evidence of what I’ve been whippin’ up in the kitchen! I swear to god I’ve been attached to my books by the lovely and fantastic Sarah Kramer. All I’ve been making lately has been out of How It All Vegan!, The Garden of Vegan, and La Dolce Vegan. They are SERIOUSLY my favourite cookbooks. So so so so so fun and amazing. Every recipe has been a hit with the whole family. And that includes my very anti-health-food/anti-vegan father. He won’t touch tofu with a ten foot poll (which is why in a few days I’m making the tip-top tofu loaf….bwahahaha! I’m so sneaky). But yeah. Within the past week I made the Mulligatawny Soup from HIAV which was a hit (no picture sorry…it was eaten up too fast!). It got rave reviews. Everyone loved the spicy-curry-nessnessness. Also, I made the Wild Mushroom soup from TGOV (hey, it’s cold here. Soup is good right now) – which was also freaking amazing. No picture for that either. Next came Eggplant Parmesan from LDV…made with VeganRella along side some steamed broccoli in Wolffie’s Nutritional Yeast “Cheese” sauce, garlic bread, and the Double Chocolate muffins (also from La Dolce Vegan). Total hit, man.

Now. Two nights ago I made “Mum’s Bean and Cheese Casserole ” from HIAV alongside some more broccoli and “cheese”. I swear to god that my dad had like half of the casserole dish. Crazy. It was so amazing. I heart dijon mustard. A lot. 🙂 This is a keeper. Actually, I’m thinking of taking this to the fam’s Easter dinner this year.

And oh the desserts. I made the Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars from HIAV. Dude. Amazing. Seriously. Can she do no wrong?

But you do remember my saying that I’ve been struggling, right? So this was some of the only stuff I’ve been able to put in my mouth lately. It’s really been helping. Guys, let me tell you there’s nothing worse than feeling like you’re going to like inflate and explode from eating a bowl of lettuce. Awful. Ever since the new year began I have been going in a downward spiral. I mean, I feel bloated. I exercise so much my feat are swelling up and are blistering. I won’t eat if I don’t burn the calories off. And the worst part is, I know I’m doing this to myself but I don’t know what to do about it. I can’t get my Epstein barrs back…(from last year…). Sorry about the rant, but I had to get that out. What does this have to do with the amazing Sarah you ask? Well, reading how she got over her struggles is inspiring me to get better. I want to so badly. It’s just hard. If anyone out there is going through the same thing, you know how hard it is. Every day is a struggle. It’s very very hard, but you just have to take it day by day. As for today? Meh. I feel bloated. But I’m eating. But I also couldn’t get myself to leave the house in fear that I wouldn’t be able to exercise (yeah. I’m insane. I get up at 6 am to start working out…uhhg. Why do I do this to myself…I’m so tired). So I hope tomorrow will be better. Wish me luck, folks.

…Broccoli stir-fry? Odd? Just a little…do you think? Well, that was me last night. I don’t do take out. I usually don’t “crave” foods period. But yeah…this is what I came up with for a quick-fix for my broccoli craving:

A Lazy Person’s Broccoli Stir-Fry:

1 package of Tofu Shirataki Noodles (angel hair works best)

1 cup of broccoli (frozen works nicely)

a few liberal shakes of garlic salt

cooking spray

Spray a non-stick skillet with your cooking spray and put over medium heat. Put your broccoli in the skillet and start to warm and maybe even get a little crispy. Add your garlic salt. In the meantime, drain and press your noodles (it’s not really important that they get that dry). Add your noodles to the skillet and heat through throughly, and maybe even add some more garlic salt if you want (I did…but I really like garlic). Then just transfer to a plate and enjoy! It was seriously a good snack…at midnight.

So onto more normal-ish food. I decided to make the cheese-potato pierogies from La Dolce Vegan. Now I didn’t try them, but the fam loved them! (I’m not really into potatoes…)

I know…not the prettiest picture, but apparently they tasted good!

NEWSFLASH! I finally made a good muffin today after like TWO FREAKIN WEEKS of flopped muffin batches. I made the Coffee Chip Muffins from Vegan Brunch. They were good. Real good. Mum liked ’em too. A lot different from other muffins I’ve made with instant coffee…a lot better. I think it was the dissolving of the coffee in the milk rather than just adding it to the batter. But I dunno. They were rad.

They’ll be a great snack to have during class tomorrow. Seriously. What is better than an art class at college. There is like no stress at all. I love it. It is infinitely better than going to that hell hole Buffalo State. For those of you who haven’t been following my blog, I used to attend Buff State College as a fashion major. Now I LOVE fashion (I’m still a fashion major…) but I HATED school. Worst. Experience. Ever. Now I’m going to a community college for a semester while hopefully transferring to FIT next fall…….just so you all know. If you care. Which you probably don’t, but who cares. OH OH OH! Now I gotta tell you about my lunch that I’m having tomorrow. I made some homemade flour tortillas (which turned out a little thick, but I care little) from a recipe off of VegWeb (here’s the recipe…I got 4 medium sized tortillas):

2 1/2 cups flour (bread flour works best)

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2/3 cup very warm water

1 teaspoon garlic or onion salt (whichever you prefer)

Directions:

Using food processer put in flour, garlic salt, oil and water and process until it gathers into a ball. Add more water or flour as needed (if it is dry more water, if too moist more flour). Form into little balls (should be about 12). Using either a tortilla maker or the bottom of a glass flatten out the dough into tortilla shape. Make thinner for thinner tortillas, thicker for thicker ones. Cook over medium to medium high heat in stick free cookware, or use tortilla maker.

Anyways. I prepped my lunch for tomorrow. I just stuffed two of the tortillas with raw kale, spinach and half of an avocado then pan fried them. Oh. My. God. The KALE! It smelled SO SO SO good. Well, here’s a pic (I’m so excited to eat this!)

Tonight I will probably make the same stir fry as last night just with kale instead of broccoli. I shall keep you updated 🙂

Speaking of updates…I HAVE A JOB INTERVIEW THURSDAY. Yosh. Oh the excitement!

I know, I know. I’ve been the world’s suckiest blogger lately. It’s just…I’ve been feeling a bit off. Remember that stomach thing that I had for the longest time? Well, that’s finally gone after I went on a week long detox. The swelling in my face and feet is gone and everything! I have no idea what that was all about…but anyways. During that week I decided to make my own little ramen soup. Sort of. Here’s the recipe:

Drain and dry your noodles. Then just put everything in a bowl and microwave until throughly heated.

Great for a lazy day.

So I have been baking like mad lately. I’ve made numerous cookies, brownies, bars, cakes, biscuits and whatnot. Just haven’t been taking pictures. Wanna know why? Because I was failing at baking. Nothing was working. Until lately. I’ve got my mojo back. I feel if I blog regularly I’ll stay on my mojo. So, an example of something that actually turned out is these cute lil’ cinnamon rolls that I whipped up this morning from a recipe off of VegWeb. It’s really nice because IT DOESN’T REQUIRE YEAST! Yay! :

Mix in soy milk until dough is soft (you may need slightly more or less to get the dough to a workable consistency). Do not over mix!

Roll dough to 0.25 inch thickness (0.5 cm) in a long rectangle — about 8 inch by 16 inch (16cm x 32 cm). Using a pastry brush, coat the rectangle of dough with the melted margarine. Then spread the Sucanat and cinnamon over it.

Roll from the long end, forming a tight roll. Cut rolls about 1 inch (2 cm) thick. Place on a lightly greased baking sheet and bake at 450 degrees for 15 mins or until golden.

While rolls are baking, make icing by mixing margarine and powdered sugar. Slowly add soy milk to reach desired consistency. spread on rolls while they are still warm.

note: the rolls themselves are not sickeningly sweet, which makes for good contrast with the icing. compared to other cinnamon roll recipes, this one is extremely quick and easy, but still soft and tasty!

Actually, I made mine larger, so I only came out with 8 normal-large sized rolls. Everyone in the fam loves them. Half the batch has already been eaten up!

So speaking of food that the omnis love, has anyone else ever made the Cinnamon-Walnut Coffee Cake (pg. 41) from La Dolce Vegan? Well, I just decided last week to make it, and my dad ate up TWO batches. Yeah. Within a week. The only sub I made was subbing Fat Free Nayonase for the faux sour cream. No pics, sorry. Next time, I promise. Also, I’ve also just found two things out: one being that I’m obsessed with broccoli. It smells, and tastes awesome and it is like the miracle food vitamin and mineral-wise. And two being that I really love making soup! I decided to make and freeze up a batch of the Cheesy Broccoli Soup from Skinny Bitch in the Kitch. It was great 😀 It only made up 6 cups instead of 7 but you know…what ev.